Facets
by Andrew Joshua Talon
Summary: Two views from Shinji and Misato following the Fourteenth Angel attack. WAFF, ShinjiMisato if you squint. Mild language.


Her purple hair had always held the most fascination with him. Watching it roll and wave through the free breeze as she drove wildly with the car window down. Seeing it fall wetly yet gracefully across her shoulders as she undid the towel around her head. Observing how she pulled it back and tied it into a bun, secure, before launching into some kind of work. 

Shinji wondered what it would feel like, to touch and hold. Intuitively he knew it would probably feel like his own, only longer. Smoother.

Okay, maybe he didn't know what it would feel like. The frustration was eating away at his self control.

'Stupid pervert, obsessing about your guardian's hair', a voice like Asuka's rebuked him. 'You have some kind of weird fetish?'

Shinji wondered why it was Misato's hair his thoughts turned to the most. Asuka's was long and wavy, a fiery red that fit with her personality so perfectly, a waving banner of flame behind the proud Second Child.

In constrast, Ayanami's hair was short and practical, it's light blue coloration so like the water she swam through. Cool and fluidic, while her life was almost a reflection of his, it possessed a depth and experience he couldn't imagine. So much like the water, she intimidated him, but not in the same way as Asuka's fire.

So, what was Misato? Too soft for fire, too hard for water. Too lively for either earth or wind. He'd think steel when he saw her in battle, but at home she was loose, almost carefree. In her room while sleeping, a mess. What was purple?

They were alone tonight. Asuka off at Hikari's, as she'd been for a while, even after he'd returned from Unit One. Misato had stayed, always home before him it seemed. He still cooked and cleaned, but she gave him smiles, a few hugs. Even now, her arm was resting just above his shoulders as she watched an old black and white horror film on the TV before them, laughing at the cheesy special effects and making commentary like "Just wait, here it comes... There! See?"

He'd said, repeatedly, that if she had something else to do... Then she'd given him a look, both imperious and warm. Both distant and caring.

"The sun," he murmured. Misato was the sun.

* * *

She stared at him, a bit curious. The sun? He shrugged, smiling that wan smile of his and she felt contentment rise in her heart. He was here. He was smiling. What else did she need?

'Don't get too attached. Keep him at a distance, because if you lose him...' It was far too late for that. She was too close already, probably too close from the moment she met him. He was so grateful to her, for everything... Just like she was for him. Every day she found him here, every day he came home... She gets closer, and yet she keeps trying to pull away.

'It's seriously fucked up, that's what it is,' she thinks. 'I know this flutter, this warmth in my stomach.' To her, it's different yet familiar. She knows it doesn't make sense, but love... Love is the first thing to come to her mind. And she can't refute it.

Could he understand it? Of course not, she thinks. He's never been shown love in his life, how would he return it?

'But he does,' insists a guilt-shielded voice in the back of her head. 'He's still here. He does all of this, for you.'

For others, she retorts. I'm not all there is to him.

'Maybe... But without you he dies. Without him... You die.'

She'd gotten so used to living with him, that she couldn't remember living without him. Going back to that... She didn't know if she could. 'No', she decides, 'I'm sure, I couldn't'.

To hell with the human race if she couldn't live with Shinji. If she can't see him, can't know that he's there... What's the point? She would put her gun in her mouth, and the fate of mankind be damned.

At the same time, she want to win. Defeat theose monsters, once and for all, unveil the shadow games behind this war and cast the puppeteers into hell where they belong. She wants the darkness to be gone. Not for some high-flung ideal but for him. For her. For... Them, she supposes, if there could be such a thing. A 'them', an 'us'. Every day that little voice in the back of her head is winning... And she in turn finds it harder to fight. Because she can't deny what it says.

And she doesn't want to.

* * *

_ My first WAFF attempt. Tell me how I did._


End file.
